"In approximately 3,337,200,000,000,000 nanoseconds, Intel will reveal all there is to know about the highly anticipated 4th generation Intel Core processor family," Intel said in a statement Friday.

That's June 3 in the U.S. and June 4 in Taiwan, where it will be rolled out at Computex.

Haswell is mostly about better battery life and, to a lesser extent, about improved graphics performance. So, expect, for instance, Haswell laptops that last longer -- maybe a lot longer if other power-saving technologies are also used -- than today's latest and greatest offerings.

Here's a quad-core Haswell diagram showing a large graphics engine. What Intel describes as 'configurations with large graphics and large cache.'
Intel

The first Haswell processors out of the chute are expected to be the quad-core variety aimed at high-end laptops. But don't be surprised if more quad-core chips seep into mainstream 13-inch and 14-inch laptops too due to Haswell's improved power efficiency.

At the other end of the spectrum will be a new variety of ultra-power-efficient Haswell chips that should allow PC makers -- and Apple if it so chooses -- to offer newfangled ultrathin designs with good performance.

And, of course, touch will be a big factor because of Windows 8 -- with Windows 8.1 to follow in the second half.

But it's not just a Windows world anymore. Intel told CNET that Android laptops are on the way. While many of them will tap Intel's Atom chip, new designs that run Google's Chrome OS -- like the Chromebook Pixel -- will adopt Haswell.

About the author

Brooke Crothers writes about mobile computer systems, including laptops, tablets, smartphones: how they define the computing experience and the hardware that makes them tick. He has served as an editor at large at CNET News and a contributing reporter to The New York Times' Bits and Technology sections. His interest in things small began when living in Tokyo in a very small apartment for a very long time.
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